Thank you.....

I am doing these posts backwards...I do realize this, but I don't want too much time to get away from me and lose precious memories. So now that I've posted the Italy pictures, I have some huge thank-yous to make.

First of all, thank you to our Father God because He guided us, protected us and allowed this trip to happen. I know that His timing is perfect!

Next, the Shullenbarger family, for providing us with a friendly place to stay while we were waiting to see if we would be able to get enough seats on the plane. You are always home away from home for us!

Thank you to the U.S. military for allowing retirees to use extra seats on their contracted flights. These flights are primarily for the troops, but it is a really nice perk to be able to use the extra seats if you are retired. Also, a huge thank-you to all troops deployed right now....we traveled with some of them during this trip.

To Tanya, Kurt, Riley and Chase McCormick - without you, we would not have been able to do as much as we did in Italy! They provided us with a place to stay, a car to drive, and wonderful hospitality. They made this trip affordable to our family!

To the Blietz family - thank you for being flexible last minute and letting us stay with your wonderful family overnight. We were unsure of when our flight landed in the U.S. and needed a place to sleep before completing the trip to Pennsylvania.

To our nephew, Nicholas - thank you so much for staying in our home while we were gone and putting up with our incredible naughty dog. We so appreciate you!

And to all of our friends and family who prayed for us and have asked about our trip - thank you, we truly feel loved!

So if you're still reading this, here is an itinerary of our trip, so the pictures make a little more sense -

We drove to Maryland on Saturday, March 19th, so that we could participate in a friend's birthday party. We were in Maryland until Wednesday, March 23rd, when our flight took off from BWI (Baltimore Washington International Airport). (Fun in Maryland pictures to come). The plane actually took off at 1:10 a.m. Friday....but that we didn't know until we got to the airport. We arrived in Italy around 6 p.m. Friday (Italian time). The following is the order of our travels:

• Saturday, March 26: Venice
• Sunday, March 27: Drive into the Alps - Lake Barcis and Longarone
• Monday, March 28: Aviano Air Base Day - gave the kids a break, also most things closed in this area of Italy on Mondays. We enjoyed some new parks, the bowling center and driving around seeing how much things have changed.
• Tuesday, March 29: Trieste
• Wednesday, March 30: Piancovallo
• Thursday, March 31: Flight home

It was a quick trip, but very well worth it. We hope to do it again.